


A Different Kind of Courage

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch, Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Barrayarans, Cetagandans, Clones, DCI Thomas NIghtingale - Freeform, Dendarii Mercenaries - Freeform, F/M, Lady Ty - Freeform, Mama Thames - Freeform, Thames River Barrier, Water Goddesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constable Peter Grant, apprentice wizard, and Beverley Brook, his friend and goddess of a small river in London,  find trouble at the Thames River Barrier, with enemies and allies from the Vorkosiverse. Teen because of some language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Courage

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Rivers of London AU set several thousand years in the future at the time of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosiverse. 
> 
> There are now nine billion people on Earth, and the Thames River Barrier has expanded many times, changing form and function due to global warming and flooding. It's now 40 kilometers long, and contains pumping chambers which fill and empty with the tides, as per Brothers in Arms. 
> 
> Magical crime in the UK is combated by the Folly, home of English magic since 1775, and the headquarters of apprentice wizard Peter Grant, and his guvnor, DCI Thomas Nightingale. The story takes place after Foxglove Summer although no specific spoilers for that.

*  
I woke up in a small dark slime-covered room, with a ferocious headache. The last memory I had was of me and Beverley taking my Asbo groundcar down to the Thames River Barrier from her house to sort out a report of trespassers, possibly vandals. We parked in her space and then ran down to the walkway between Towers Six and Seven. At the river side edge of the walkway after not seeing anyone, we separated. I hurried down to a lower level to check any activity below, and Bev went swinging over the wall to swim to the next tower, dreadlocks flying. 

All of the goddesses of the Thames rivers, Mama Thames' daughters, shared her Nigerian heritage, but Beverley was the most beautiful, in my completely unbiased judgement. She'd left her clothes and shoes behind but had worn her neoprene wetsuit. I'd worn one too, under my long Arsenal shirt and jeans. Last time I got into the Thames, I'd nearly died, hypothermia and drowning each taking their turn at me.

Now, though, I was in a small dark space, having fallen on someone, with the worst headache I'd ever had.

The other person—a guy—slithered out from under me. 

“Fuck! Who're you?”

“I'm P.C. Peter Grant, and who are you?”

He had an Eastern European accent, Russian, I thought.

I reached out my hand, shaking a bit from the pain, and concentrated. Nightingale had taught me how to work under physical stress, mostly by combining traditional boxing practice with spell casting. I called up a werelight and quickly tacked it to the ceiling with scindere, and turned to look at the man who was sitting up slowly.

He was a large IC2 male, olive skin with dark hair and eyes, of about two meters, slightly taller than me, slightly lighter than my medium brown. His unfamiliar green uniform, once dressy with gold braid, was now damp, crumpled, and beslimed. His eyes were wild, almost insane. What drew me though, was his hands—thick, swollen, torn. He raised a hand up to wipe his hair back from his brow, leaving behind streaks of green slime mixed with blood. He must have been pounding on the locked door of wherever we were for some time.

There were grinding and deep drumming sounds outside us, and suddenly I realized that we were in one of the pumping chambers deep within the Barrier which would fill and empty with the tide. 

I wouldn't say that hanging out with river goddesses has given me a mystical understanding of the Thames system, but it's true that I can keep track of the tide tables more easily. High tide would be at 2:07 am. We'd gotten to the Barrier about 1:00, I thought. Good thing I'd woken up.

It wasn't going to help if I panicked, so I asked, “What's your name and address?”

“Ivan Vorpatril. Lieutenant. Militar' attache.” He had pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around him. I don't think he realized he was slowly rocking himself.

“Attache? From what embassy?”

“Barrayar,” he said. 

Oh, not them, I thought. The horse goons, as Stephanopoulos called them, an highly militarized three-planet empire. They were civilized at embassy dinners, as far as I knew, but there had been bloody military incursions to other planets within the last fifty years when most of the rest of the Nexus was at peace. I couldn't remember any vendettas here, though. 

He tried to moisten his mouth with spit, and my throat convulsed in sympathy. I could remember all too well the dryness I had felt while buried alive during a case. Tonight we couldn't wait for anyone else to free us. I had no idea where Beverley was and hoped she hadn't run into any more green-uniformed hooligans.

“Never mind. Let's get out of here.”  
I studied the hatch of the chamber, about half a meter above us. I'd probably shorted out its controls with the werelight, which meant—sweat trickled down my back as I realized what I'd have to do. I squinted at the hatching mechanism, but it was not a simple lock. I could knock those out. If I couldn't knock out this one--I'd never punched holes in steel before.

“How did t'little clone get you, too?” said Ivan.

“Clone?” Human cloning was successful, if not ethical, and mostly practiced on the quasi-criminal planet of Jackson's Whole. When I asked Dr. Walid if he'd ever studied a clone, he started to describe the human brain transfer into cloned young bodies, and then just exploded in curses about the vile process.

“It's murther pure and simple, and no one does anything aboot it! House Bharaputra needs to be razed to the groond!” 

His Scottish accent was much stronger than usual, which I'd noticed before when he was angry. 

I myself had never seen a human clone and if one were here in the city, Dr. Walid would love studying him. In fact—the larger man groaned and I realized I'd gotten distracted by science again.

“The little guy, looks like my—the little guy with the stunner. With the big guy. They stunned me and dumped me in here.”

“That was a stunner? Feels like my head is going to fall off.”

Military stunners were offensive weapons in limbo status within the Metropolitan Police guidelines. They weren't lethal by themselves, usually, but could cause fatal accidents and were therefore banned. Some embassies, like the Barrayarans, I now remembered, tried to claim them as cultural weapons, but they were still supposed to be banned for civilians. They'd been added to normal police kit only two years ago, and I hadn't gotten any training with them at all, for the usual reason. Modern microprocessors burned out with magic spells were cast; no one knew why.

I was getting a bit worried about Beverley. I wouldn't have come down alone with her if I'd known that either diplomatic or weapons breaches of the peace were taking place. Distracted again.

“Yes, of course with a stunner, or I'd be dead now! They put me in here as bait for Miles. I'm going to kill that little clone the next time I see him.”

I shook my head, setting off the headache again.  
“I have to get us out of here. I have a pneumatic drill.”

What I had was a spell rigged from a lux plus impello in a forma cotidianum—meaning that generations of Newtonian wizards had tweaked and fooled around with it. You can't make an invisible pneumatic drill just by imagining it—you had to shape the correct variation of impello, and then turn it on and off as fast as you can. I had no idea how long I could do this without getting a stroke, but otherwise what good am I?

I moved the werelight to the hatch lock, and intensified it. Then I hit the hatch with the hardest, most directed impello I could. I managed about ten repetitions before the pain caught up with me and I stopped, holding my head. 

“Post-stun migraine's a bitch.” Ivan sounded more coherent, but less confident. “Never had one before? You're lucky. Little clone—I'll break him in half.”

I turned back to the hatch and gave it one last lux-impello before I collapsed on the floor. Dr. Walid was going to get my brain, after all. I was going right into his formalin specimen cases of bad examples. Hyperthaumaturgical degradation. Cauliflower brain.

Ivan stood up, pointing to the hatch door. There was a pinpoint—more than a pinpoint—one finger's breadth—three—of bright light coming in. It wasn't large, but some very important molecules of air were making their way in. I hadn't realized how much of my headache was from hypoxia. Probably no cauliflower brain, then. 

Also—sound. A man yelling Ivan's name.

“Here!” Ivan screamed hoarsely. I repeated him—two hoarse screams are better than one.

Someone scrabbled at the hatch door, swearing. I'd apparently made the outer hatch door hot, which pleased me, even though it took the other person longer to manually unlock us.

Our rescuer was another IC2 male, probably very short—hard to tell upside down—with skin and hair color the same as Ivan's, and grey eyes. He had another type of uniform I'd never seen, gray with white trim on jacket lapels and pockets.

“You!” snarled Ivan from behind me.

“No, not him,” the other corrected. “Me.”

Then noticing me for the first time, he said, “Who the hell are you?”

“Peter Grant. Constable Grant. You are?”—

The man hesitated. “My name isn't important to you. Call me Miles.”

I'd have pushed him on his waffling, but he was the one holding the rappelling gear.

After we had climbed out of the hatch, I asked him, “What's all this then?”  
You have to. He ignored me, though.

The man, Miles, I now noticed, was quite short, around one-fifty centimeters, with a little bit of a crooked neck. I thought he wasn't much older than me, although his face had more lines. He did seem like someone used to authority—just not any authority I had to obey.

He continued to ignore me, pulling us all along by the sheer force of his will.  
“Come on, Destang's got a death squad out for Mark. I was supposed to be up on the Triumph so he could kill him. They've already shot at me—with a nerve disruptor—stupid squad went out with Barrayaran regulation boots on.”

More firearms and weapons violations. CO19 was going to have to liase very firmly with the Barrayarans. 

Running along hadn't stopped the short man's flow of speech. 

“Were you the one with the jackhammer?” he asked me. “That's the way I found Ivan—some loud jackhammer going off.”

I grinned. Nightingale was going to love the way my not-quite-sanctioned spell had been useful.

“Yes, that was mine.” I focused back on the death squad comment. “Who's Mark?”

“Who are you with again?”

“Metropolitan Police—with the Folly.”

I didn't expect it to mean anything to this off-worlder, but Ivan exclaimed, “Oh no! Not you guys! He's the magic police, Miles!”

“Magic police?” We were all still running.

“Yeah, they're the ones who shut down the unicorn park up in Surrey. I was going there my next off day. They let you pet the tame lions, too.”

“Unicorns should never have been brought into the UK at all,” I said, with a memory of how I'd had to fight one. “Neither Queen wanted it and they're basically carthorses with an offensive weapon on their foreheads.” I shuddered, remembering.

“Really magic police?” Miles looked up at me.

“Yes.”

“Any broomsticks?”

I gave him the Look. “No.”

We rounded a curve into another blue-walled service foyer, with a lift tube marked level B, section 32. I had once studied the levels and their color coding, but damned if I could concentrate now. I was still stumbling with the remains of my post-stun headache. It reminded me how unprepared I'd been for this all—no stabvest, baton, or taser—I needed to be less compelled by the lovely Beverly next time she wanted me to come with her. I did, however, have a little waterproof commlink with a battery off-switch tucked away in the pocket of my wetsuit.

I pulled it out before Miles could stop me.

“Wait!” he yelled, but I pulled the commlink up away from him and punched the 999 code.

“Police Constable Peter Grant. Armed disturbance at the Thames Barrier between Towers six and seven by unknown persons armed with nerve disruptors.”

“Sir, say again sir?”

I started to repeat, but we'd come to another curve, and Beverley was stumbling towards me, yanking an identical small man with her. The entire right side of her head was red and swollen, and her ear was lined with yellow and white blisters. Her dreads on that side were singed off.

I grabbed her and pulled her into my arms. She was shaking with rage and pain.

“Peter, there are painted fucking lunatics that way! They have plasma arcs! I ran across this fellow and was trying to find a way out—I don't think Mum knows how complicated they've made it here—and we ran into them. They were after him, but I got him away.” 

She shook the other man—Miles' identical twin, I would have said, before I knew about the clone. “What did you do to them? They were going to kill you as soon as they saw you.” She seemed ready to kill him herself, but I peeled him away from her carefully. I noted then that he was wearing the same Barrayaran green that Ivan was.

“Painted?” said Miles with a grim expression. “Face paint? Like a Chinese opera mask?”

“I don't know what that looks like! But one had colors solid from ear to ear!”

“Damn! That's a Cetagandan ghem-commander, on formal hunt. They don't want Mark, they want me. Mistaken identity. I um, might have saved some prisoners from them.” 

I finally recognized him. I might have done so before, but he wasn't that memorable. There were nine billion people on Earth, quite a few of them short. Admiral Miles Naismith of the Dendarii mercenaries, though, was lately on top of the news.

He grinned up at me as we stopped, obviously expecting praise. I'd already heard about Dagoola and the rescue of ten thousand prisoners of the Cetagandans. His name had been all over the place, but no one had any vids of him.

What I recognized him for, though, was a recent armed hostage crisis by some brutes of his damned mercenary outfit. These ASBOs had gotten wild on shore leave. They invaded a wineshop, kidnapped and held the proprietor tied up and threatened a dead man switch on an explosive if anyone came in. All of this had been widely vidded. 

By the time the admiral appeared, the wineshop was in flames, and he barely rescued the proprietor. Stephanopoulos had caught the case which had required fire equipment and ambulances, CO19, the Anti Terrorism Command for bomb disposal and assessment of further risks, TRS, and police hovercars. Plus no end of media presence. A real clusterfuck, she said. 

I was surprised not to see Naismith in jail with his men.

What I didn't know about Dagoola, and I didn't think anyone knew, was that the Cetas here on Earth were chasing the little Admiral. The eight-planet empire was more aggressive than Barrayar, and they considered themselves “post human” due to their constant genetic manipulation. They were rich, powerful, paranoid—and after us.

Now we had Cetagandans with plasma arcs in the Barrier as well as nerve disruptor—armed Barrayarans. I needed the whole riot squad and CO19, and all I had was me.

If we could escape them through the exterior ladders—no, the tide reading was on the wall right in front of me. I didn't want to believe it.

“Bev, is this right? We're underwater now?”

“Yes!” she growled. 

That left the lift tube, but I didn't want to take that way out, as the controls for it would fizzle if I had to use magic. 

I asked Miles, as we continued to catch our breath at the intersection of two corridors.

“Why do the Cetagandans and the Barrayarans both want to kill you?”

He waved away the question. “The Barrayarans don't want me, they want my...brother Mark.”

“So what is Mark wanted for?”

“The Barrayarans think that Mark committed treason against the Imperium. It looks suspicious, but he actually didn't.”

“Conspired to, though, and that's all that matters,” said the other man, Mark, in a bitter voice. “If they don't kill me here, they'll drag me to Barrayar—what is it, Miles, still starvation in the Great Square?”

Miles said, “I'm thinking about that. There may be a way to get you out clear.” 

Ivan started yelling, waving his bloody hands.  
“Doesn't kidnapping me and leaving me to drown in a pitch black chamber count for anything? We should be able to throw him in prison a few years for that! Why are you still sticking up for t' bloody clone?” He threw a disgusted glare at a man supposedly unknown to him.

I realized I'd seen this type of bickering before—with my own cousins in their “Mum loves me best!” fights. The galactic and the soldier weren't strangers at all.

Miles cut in sharply,“Not the place, Ivan. We're...not where I wanted us to be, but I don't want to climb up these inner ladders and let them pick us off. The lift tubes may not work, either, if either side has been able to get to the major controls.”

They might not work if I had to cast a spell, I utterly failed to say.

So—nerve disruptors to the right and plasma arcs to the right. Miles seemed to be shifting through ideas quickly, jittering in place. He was starting to bite his nails.

This had to end now. 

I might not have a broomstick, but I have something else—the ability to destroy electronics at will. I wasn't sure about my range, though, because I'd never tried it against either type of weapon. The one other thing I'd put in the waterproof pocket was a small staff which me and Nightingale had forged this past month. He didn't think I was ready, but I pointed out that I was his only backup and I wouldn't help much if I stroked on him. It was a ten inch long rounded oak wand, essentially, and while it didn't have a phoenix feather core, the steel in it had been beaten and turned for six months, pouring in all the magic I could. 

Recently we'd put in another variation on impello, dirumpe, designed to destroy and break apart buildings. It was the type of spell Nightingale had used in the fight against Varvara Sidorovna. His could blow up barns and houses—mine was about strong enough to knock over a breeze block bookcase. If I used it, I'd have to put all my faith and will into it.

I had also learned the construction of the concrete and rebar supporting portion of each tower of the Thames Barrier, one rainy day recently while I was in the tech cave at the Folly. I was supposed to be studying my Latin, but I'd bought this beautiful new art book about the Barrier and couldn't put it down. I thought Beverley would be impressed, but she'd sniffed at me. “Family history is boring.” 

Standing in the middle of the intersection of the two corridors, I had the staff raised in my right hand towards the side the Cetagandans were coming from, and my left hand braced for defense on the side facing the Barrayarans. All the other electronics would blow, too, but the Thames River Barrier had been redesigned and strengthened with double interlocks for major functions. Even the pumping chamber I'd disrupted had sealed again and started pumping by now. Thames Water could put this whole tower back in operation in ninety minutes. 

But we'd flood part of London while the gate was down.

Unless...

“Bev, can you hold it? If I have to blow out this tower, can you hold it?”

She nodded, setting her hands against the seaward wall.

Miles came up beside me and I looked down. What the hell did the fellow think he was doing now?”

“You're using an aer congolare shield against the nerve disruptors, aren't you?” he said quietly.

“How did you”—

“Doesn't matter. I may have done some specialised reading, but I'm not a wizard. I do have something else, though.” He pulled open his jacket and pulled an old, odd-looking knife from a lizard-skin sheath. “Ancestral dagger. I got it from my grandfather,” he said, with a twist to his lip. 

“It's been modified with a personal shield which the Betans have developed.” He quickly pressed a small indentation on the side of the dagger, and popped out a 2 cm long very thin cylinder. The cylinder itself had nine tiny needles.

“I've got about ten minutes with one clip and I can reload very quickly. It doesn't even interfere with the balance of the dagger—Betans are the best in the Nexus for armaments. It's a small but highly effective package.”

He snorted. I got the joke. 

“Can you hold”—I said, at the same time as he said, “I can hold the whole corridor with the dagger. You can use both hands for the other side. Ivan, Mark, come here.”

“Thanks.” I could cast the spells with the staff alone, but if I could slip in an aer congolare shield for me and Bev, her mum wouldn't have to search me down and kill me if I survived.

“It's best if you could get at least 30 meters away from me. Magic won't mix with that.”

He glared. I really hoped the shielding wouldn't turn to sand, but I wasn't sure of the safe distance. We really needed more empirical studies—focus, Peter!

Miles quickly set Ivan as the lookout for one side and Mark for the other, placing them in alcoves and planting fisheye lenses they could watch without risking themselves. I had to admire him for tactics, I really did. He'd moved Beverley as well, making sure she was set in another secure alcove.

We waited, listening for the sound of pounding boots. I sought for the calm to bring in all the formae I needed, working to keep them in order and strengthen them. I especially needed a cool mind for the newest spell. I'm a copper, not an action hero, or even a soldier like Nightingale had been. I didn't have anyone but myself and these chance companions. Maybe I could have gotten us all out if we'd held on to Beverley. I'd been underwater in a river with her, and hadn't drowned. But she'd been burned—would she have been strong enough for four extra people? The things you think about when it's almost too late...I forced my mind back to my spells. We could call it courage if we all made it through.

Then Ivan yelled out, “Peter!” at almost the same time as Mark yelled, “Miles!”

I could feel the aer congolare thickening around me and Beverley, as I cast impello inflectentes towards the death squad. The front two were knocked down by the spell. The others kept coming, jumping over them. Their plasma arcs popped and fizzled as the microprocessors died, but I could see them reaching for combat knives. I had no choice. Carefully I reached for the formae to link together and strengthen, and then cast dirumpe towards the suspended ceiling. Tiles and ceiling lattice, as well as concrete, and rebar, cracked and dropped onto the Cetagandan squad. This time the rest of the men fell down, hopefully only dazed.

I spun around to Miles. The Barrayarans had been knocked down flat, sprawling across the corridor as they ran head-on into his shield.

“Peter!” Beverley screamed. There was a loud crunch in the seaward wall. One of the dying plasma arcs had burned through the support for an air conditioning fan, and with the support gone, the large fan had slammed down against the wall. It sounded as loud as a wrecking ball, but I thought the concrete walls would hold it. Then a crack zigzagged down, and water started seeping in. There had been a breach. Water was forcing its way in, through the settling dust, bringing the smell of the ocean. Then the trickle started to surge.

Beverley's back was arched, palms flat, fingers digging inward. She was trying to hold back the whole North Sea by herself. Racing to her, I held her up, letting her set her back more firmly. More of her face was blistering now.

“Peter! Mum and Ty are coming, but I..just..don't..know.” I'd never seen a river goddess under strain before. I put my forehead down to hers and breathed with her, willing all my strength into her.

“Police! Halt!” It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. My people were here. Behind us were the noises of Cetagandans and Barrayarans being arrested, even though some were now yelling about diplomatic immunity. That doesn't count for much, though, when you've used lethal force on civilians.

An ambulance attendant ran up to us. I held my hand out so he wouldn't disturb Beverley. She'd fallen to her knees, trembling, still holding her hands on the wall. I knelt with her. Then I smelled the strong vestigia of the goddesses: the banana, diesel oil, and chocolate of Mama Thames, the brandy, fine cigars, sewers, and sundried tomatoes of Lady Ty. Both the river goddesses appeared behind the ambulance attendants. Mama Thames ignored her gold lace Austrian blouse and skirt, kneeling down beside Beverley, who'd fallen to the floor, cradling her. Ty, giving me a thousand-watt glare, reached a hand back to the broken wall where Beverley had stood. One hand on the wall, one hand on Mama Thames, and the noise of the sea grew quieter, the water dropping to a trickle. 

Mama Thames snarled, “You burned my daughter,” and at first I thought she was blaming me. But she was gazing at Miles, and though his manic mouth opened, he couldn't find a word to say.

“How did you know”—I started to ask, and Ty snapped at me, “Don't you know when a finger is cut? When a brick drops on your foot? You pretend to know her and don't”—she made a twisted gesture with her hand and I felt a choke of hemp around my neck.

“Hold, Mama Thames, Lady Ty,” said a quiet voice I hadn't allowed myself to hope for. Nightingale was here, carrying the heavier of his two staves. “Hold here with me.” She took his hand, and I could feel power rolling off him as I never had before. I watched him, amazed. Mama Thames was many times more powerful than Nightingale, but I could feel something changing in the air while he stood with her. Somehow he was helping Mama Thames with her energy. Beverley was now curled into her mother's lap, and I could sense strength repairing her, mostly through Mama Thames, but some coming from Nightingale.

His face turned grey with pain, but he continued to hold the goddess' hand. Fifteen minutes later, Beverley was breathing quietly and fast asleep, her burns healed.  
*  
I never did find out what exactly Nightingale did to let us escape. He'd come down in his silver Jag aircar, telling the outer perimeter guards that he was Investigator Reed of the London police courts. Then he enabled us to waft out of the whole scenario. 

I learned that Miles had only recently found that his clone existed, and had been torture-created for a plot against him. Mark was gone, had slipped away, too, his secrets with him. It would have been another negative mark on my career folder, and another weary round with the DPS, but for the quick-talking Admiral Naismith. He conciliated them with great emphasis on my initiative and bravery in taking on a plasma-arc-armed Cetagandan death squad with only my staff. I got a commendation, instead. Stupid bravery, maybe, but looking back, I decided I wouldn't have done anything different.  
*  
Miles did something for Mama Thames; I don't know what. I suspected it was another hidden arrangement. He mollified her about me, and about the whole situation. Beverley had been the one to involve me, which wouldn't have mattered to her mother, but Miles cajoled, and talked, and talked some more, and placated her so that she didn't take out her vengeance on me.

“You don't know what else he did to get me and Nightingale out of trouble?” Beverley and I were snuggled together on the couch in the tech cave, having just finished off a pot of fish and jollof rice.

“No, and I've asked. She just said that he could charm birds from the tree and fish out of the sea. He also made a two hundred thousand Betan dollar donation to help repair the Barrier.”

“Did he get rid of the Barrayarans and Cetagandans, I hope?” I said not quite clearly, because I was lying with my head in her lap, leaning in to kiss her stomach. 

“No, not exactly. It seems that he's involved with one or the other, I don't know, and so...besides they have to stay, they're class one embassies. Not just consulates. The Cetagandans—I don't know what my mum is going to do with them. She's been sending tight beam messages to their Emperor. I think he got more concessions from the Barrayarans, but you'd have to ask Ty.”

It was something to imagine Lady Ty with the horse goons. I wished them well of her.

I reached down to hand her a package from under the coffee table. Miles had sent it this morning. She nearly dropped it because it started making noise, rumbling actually. Toby had been in the room when the package came, and started barking at it, but not in his “I smell magic” way. It had been a “I-don't-know-who-you-are-but-you'd-better-run-away” bark. She ripped through the packaging and pulled out a wide spread of rich brown fur, the exact color of her skin. It snuggled up to her and started purring. 

“It's a...cat?” she wrinkled her brow at me. She picked up the card.

“With all my gratitude and respect to a beautiful goddess. I couldn't ask for a better warrior in all my command.”

“Live fur, bioengineered from felis domesticus genes, but with no actual cat-parts, or cat brains or anything.” I summarized from the care notice. I was a bit uneasy, but she loved it, wrapping it around her, and then around us when I slid back down to lie beside her. 

*

Miles looked down at Earth, the old blue ball, just before the fleet broke orbit. It had been a remarkable stay, what with juggling both his Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Vorkosigan identities at the same time. He'd successfully won protection for his new friend, Constable Grant, and had dinner with him and DCI Nightingale, the Nightingale of legend.

He'd paid a visit to an Orisa, a water goddess, sitting with Mama Thames in her overheated throne room with the delectable smells of chicken and rice, and what Peter had told him was palm oil and cassava leaf, while urgently coaching him not to eat a single thing. He'd made a goddess clap her hands when he didn't come up with a lorry full of liquor, but a whole removal van which blocked the street. “Plus an entire float pallet of chocolate and cigars for Lady Ty, being carried to her house even now.” And another entire float pallet of gold bars, those still being used as currency here. 

He'd gotten her to forgive much. “For it was to rescue me and mine that all these ills were done, and I thank you.”

“You could stay longer,” she'd said, and he felt something strong he knew was her glamour. For a moment, or ten, he wanted to fall on his knees and touch his head to the ground. He stood, bowed, hand on heart, and turned to exit gracefully, not quite running back to the groundcar. He hadn't seen much of Earth, but he'd seen some of it in quite astonishing detail. Before the ships broke orbit, he looked down one last time, watching the winding white ribbon of the Thames River Barrier grow smaller below him.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to sixthlight from Rivers of London for beta read and comments. And to Ana from the Vorkosiverse--thank you for beta read, comments, and support.


End file.
